1
Beside the house, two old cypresses make great pools of shadow in the
bright, green garden. Motionless, they keep a pious and jealous watch
over the stone fountain whose basin seems to round itself into an
obliging mirror for their benefit. Here, amid the cool stillness, the
running water murmurs its unceasing orison.
I make Rose sit beside the fountain and slowly I begin unbinding her
hair.
Oh, the beauty of the honey-coloured waves that roll down her shoulders
and frame her face in their sweetness! Again and again I lifted and
shook out those long-imprisoned tresses, giving them life and liberty at
last. Rose, following the ancient fashion of our Norman peasant-women,
does her hair into a mass of tight little plaits, twisted so cruelly as
to forbid all freedom.
The better to efface the impress of their tyrannical past, I had to dip
them into water. They opened out, like sea-weed.
I had brought rich materials, jewels and flowers for Rose's adornment.
All her beauty, so long hidden, was at last to stand revealed. I knew
its potency, I divined its splendour; but her hair was too barbarously
done, her garments too coarse and rough for me to discover the character
of her beauty or say what constituted its nobility.
Rose, still smiling, held her head back patiently and, with closed eyes,
gave herself over to my tender mercies. Then another picture, a similar
picture, but tragic and now fading into dimness, rose in my mind; and,
almost in spite of myself, I said, softly:
"Your long hair must have floated like this, I expect, on the day when
you wished to die. And it must have been its splendour that would not
suffer such a catastrophe. I wonder, dear, that you should have wished
that, you who are so faint-hearted in the presence of life!"
Her forehead, bronzed by the summer suns, turned a warmer colour, like a
ripe apricot; the veins on her temples swelled a little; and she
murmured:
"I don't know ... I don't know...."
I made fruitless efforts to find out the cause of her embarrassment;
her face clouded; and she said nothing more. Then, after doing up her
hair, I began to drape a material around her. I was thoroughly enjoying
myself. Rose noticed it and asked me why I was smiling.
"Why?" I cried. "Why? Oh, of course, you are incapable at present of
understanding the pleasure which I feel! And how many are there who
could distinguish its true quality? People admire the new-blown flower,
they are touched by a child's first smile, they travel day and night to
stand on a mountain-top and see the dawn conquering the shadows of the
earth; and it is considered natural that, at such moments, our feminine
hearts, always ready to be poured out, should be filled with love and
incense. But it is thought strange that one of us should recognise and
greet the union of all the graces in the fairest of her sisters! And yet
one must be a woman to feel what I feel to-day, in unveiling and
adorning your beauty. For it charms me without intoxicating me, sheds
its radiance on me without dazzling me and makes my heart throb without
causing my hands to tremble.... When the lover for the first time
beholds the object of his love, longing clouds his eyes. Certainly, his
sentiment is no less noble or less great, but it is of a very different
nature! Other joys are mine, a thousand, new and glorious emotions,
emotions of the heart and of the mind, the childish and girlish joys of
dressing up, decorating and adorning, of creating form and colour, in a
word, beauty, the stuff of which happiness is made!"
Rose interrupted me:
"Happiness? Do you think so?"
"Yes, because beauty calls for love. Does not our happiness as women lie
above everything in love?"
Making one of those horrible movements with her feet, hands and
shoulders of which I had done my best to correct her, Rose expressed her
disgust with such violence as to undo the brooch with which I had just
fastened the folds of a long white drapery to her shoulders:
"Oh," she cried, "I hate love, I hate it!"
Then she covered her face with her open hands; slowly the material
slipped down to her waist; and her bust stood out against the dark
trees, white and pure as that of a marble statue.
The great calm that is born of beauty compelled me to silence. Rose
remained without moving, untroubled by the nudity which, at any other
time, she would have refused to unveil. Did her emotion make her
unconscious, or was it, on the contrary, lifting her to a plane in which
false modesty had no place? Did she, in that brief minute, realise how
our actions change their values in proportion to the fineness of our
perception?...
I threw my cloak round her and drew aside her hands: her face was wet
with tears. I cross-examined her: could she have suffered through love?
"What is the matter, Roseline? Why are you so bitter against something
you have never experienced?"
She tried to smile through her tears and said, innocently:
"It's nothing.... It was like a shower: it's over now, quite over....
You are right, I really don't know why love fills me with such horror!"
And she came quietly and sat down again beside the fountain.
2
For the third time, I began to coil and uncoil her hair:
"You see, I was wrong just now," I said, "when I uncovered your neck and
crowned your forehead. This is what suits you: the severe Roman style!
And, though that loathing which you expressed just now seems to me
unnatural, I feel almost tempted to excuse it in you, because it is so
much in keeping with your impassive loveliness."
Kneeling in front of her, I tried to make the folds of the material
follow the natural curves of her body. Meanwhile, Rose seemed to be
watching other reflections in the water than ours. Suddenly, she leant
forward and put her beautiful bronzed arms round my neck; and I felt
that she was willing me to look up. Then I raised my head and, when we
were gazing into each other's eyes, she said, laying a sort of grave
stress on every syllable:
"Do you forgive everything, absolutely everything?"
"To answer yes is not answering half enough," I said. And, kissing her,
I added, "If you had to tell me of a serious fault, I should love to
give proof of my indulgence; but are you not the best of girls?"
I had an impression, for a second, that she was hesitating and that I
was about to receive the solemn confession of a childish fault. But she
at once replied, in a decisive little way:
"I could not be as indulgent as you, really!"
"Because you are not so happy yet, my dearest.... Come, I have my own
reasons for spoiling you and coaxing you and wanting you to be
beautiful. I know what good fruits are born of those flowers of joy!...
But I have finished my work. Get up, Rose, come with me! Come and see
yourself a goddess!"
And I carried her off to the drawing-room.
Straight and slender in the long white folds falling to her feet, the
girl stands before the mirror and stares with astonishment at her
glorified image. Does she grasp the importance of this hour? Does she
reflect that, at this minute, one of the great secrets of her destiny
has been revealed to me by this woman's game which has given me a
child's pleasure? Does she know that the moment is grave, unmatched and
marvellous and that, by my friendly hands, chance is to-day showing her
the power which she can wield and the realm over which she can rule?
Her everyday clothes are lying at her feet: the coarse chemise, the
barbarous bodice, the hat trimmed with faded ribbons. Ah, Roseline, why
cannot I as easily fling far from you all that imprisons your life and
fetters your soul!
"You are beautiful!" I say to her. "You are beautiful! Do you know what
that means? Beauty is the source of happiness; and it is also the source
of goodness, forgiveness and indulgence! Your face, if you take pleasure
in looking at it, will teach you much better than I can what you must
be. It will make you kind and gentle and generous, if you have the wish
to be in perfect harmony with it. Thanks to your beauty, my Rose, you
will be able, if you have a true conception of its dignity, to achieve
one perfect moment in your life!"
Alas, she does not share my enthusiasm! I take her hand, I lead her
through the house, into all the rooms which she does not know. I keep on
hoping that, in a new mirror, in a different light, she will at last
catch sight of herself as she is and that she will weep for joy!...
Meanwhile, she accompanies me, serene and smiling, pleased above all at
my delight. In this way, we come to the last mirror; and my hopes are
frustrated. But, in truth, I am too much entranced with the vision which
she offers to my eyes to grieve at anything; and soon I am very much
inclined to think her admirable for not feeling what I should have felt
in her place. After disappointing me, the very excess of her coldness
captivates my interest; and my enthusiasm does not permit me to seek
commonplace or contemptible reasons for it.
When admiration fills a woman's soul, it becomes nothing but an immense
cup brimming with light, a flower penetrated by the noon-day sun until
the heat makes its perfume overpowering.